


Lost in Translation

by Amethystfairy1



Series: Soulmate Shots [12]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Kinda, Lev is from Russia, Lev's a lil cutie, M/M, Nervousness, Shyness, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Writing on Skin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:40:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21936127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amethystfairy1/pseuds/Amethystfairy1
Summary: Morisuke was split between thinking his soulmate was painfully shy, or just straight-up dead, for most of his life. When he finally did receive some form of pain and an ensuing message from them, he didn't expect it to be in a foreign alphabet that he could only vaguely recognize and had no chance of reading. Considering his native tongue was Japanese, they were definitely in for some communication boundaries, but hey, in the long run, even if he didn't know it at the time, it would all be worth it.{In which Lev is painfully nervous, Yaku is frustrated and maybe a little too aggressive, Kuroo doesn't know the meaning of personal space, and all of them really need to enroll in a couple of modern language courses.}
Relationships: Haiba Lev/Yaku Morisuke
Series: Soulmate Shots [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/571063
Comments: 12
Kudos: 478
Collections: My favorite haikyuu fics





	Lost in Translation

**Author's Note:**

> OK SO This idea was sitting in my docs for a while and now at long last I have decided to complete it and add on to this series! I really wanna get back into writing for this series, so maybe give me some suggestions if you feel like it???   
> Also I didn't really know how to write Lev's shaky Japanese, mainly because I do not speak Russian and speak just enough Japanese to possibly get myself directions to a bus stop and a plane ticket home XD So yeah! Forgive me if it's a bit awkward, I did my best! With that, please enjoy! ^-^

When Morisuke was born, his parents were instantly on the lookout for any sort of sign from his soulmate. Anything your soulmate does to their body will directly affect you. If they get a tattoo, you get a tattoo. If they stub their toe, you stub your toe. If they get a piercing, you get a piercing. It’s simple. It seemed only to reach as far as marks on skin, though. For example, if your soulmate were to receive a bad scrape, you would gain the scar that followed, but not the bleeding itself. You would, of course, feel the pain of it. Although finding your soulmate was no easy feat. It wasn’t as though it screamed out to you, which was often the reason why soul mates wrote to each other, penning messages on their skin.

Yet as he grew older, he never got any sign that his soulmate was there. They never seemed to hurt themselves.

When he grew old enough to understand how the whole ‘soulmate’ system worked, he asked his mother with increasing panic about how he never got any messages, no matter how often he tried to write to them, nor a scraped knee or a bruise even.

It didn’t help that he was all too eager with throwing himself around, causing himself to often have bruises he didn’t remember getting, and he couldn’t tell you if it was from his soulmate or not. She’d told him softly, calmly, and truthfully that his could possibly be dead. She then encouraged him by saying that his soulmate could just be shy and careful. Still, the idea hung with him like a dark cloud over him as he progressed into middle school. He played on the volleyball team and was glad to throw himself with a bit more abandon.

If his soulmate was dead, they couldn’t be complaining, could they?

He truly believed it, too. After all, how could his soulmate never injure themselves badly enough for Morisuke to notice for _so_ long?

It was one day, in his second year of middle school, while he was studying at his desk in his room, that he felt a sharp pain in his foot.

Gasping, he jumped and clutched at his foot.

One of his toes was turning a worrying purple.

Stubbed toe.

His soulmate had just stubbed their toe.

Morisuke felt a bit betrayed, for it felt like they were ignoring him for so long.

He snatched up a pen and uncapped it, scribbling onto his forearm.

‘WHY DON’T YOU ANSWER ME I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!?’

A long silence, then, after a few paralyzing seconds, a thin black pen bled into his skin, carving out letters that Yaku vaguely recognized.

Though still mostly lost, he went racing downstairs.  
“Mom!” He seized her by the hand and pointed.

“My soulmate wrote!”

She gave an excited gasp. “Oh, that’s fantastic, what did they...that’s Russian? Your soul mate must be from Russia!”

Yaku blinked as he looked down at the letters.

A few moments later, he realized that his soulmate had abruptly stopped in the middle of their sentence.

_I wonder if they’re ignoring me for a reason..._

He thought to himself.

He was no romance advisor himself, he had no idea what to do, especially not when he didn’t know Russian, and it wasn’t exactly straightforward to just plug it into google translate.

He managed, somehow, after a bit of searching, to find a keypad online for the Russian alphabet. He put in the symbols on his arm word for word and hit translate.

The words were a bit off-putting.

_I am sorry I do not know what you said but you look very angry though I don’t think you can understand me I am kind of scared of meeting you so sorry I should just stop..._

At that, they’d cut off the sentence, and Morisuke frowned.

He thought for a moment of using the translator to make a sentence in Russian and then copy the letters onto his arm, but he decided not to, in case the translator messed up, and he accidentally say something offensive.

In an attempt to at least try to be kind, he drew a plain smiley face onto the back of his hand.

Hopefully that would prove that at least he wasn’t angry.

Years passed, and although he did continue to bruise himself up playing volleyball, and write to his soulmate every now and again, he never managed to get any written reply. Occasionally if he doodled some drawing on his arm, another one would be sent back to him, so that was some small comfort.

Then there was one time, in his last year of middle school, that shocked him. Apparently, his soulmate was trying, actually trying, to be able to speak to him because broken Japanese had just appeared on his left forearm.

_I not very sure I writing this right, but I trying to learn so maybe can answer?_

As subtly as possible, seeing as he was in the middle of class, he put his pen to his arm and tried to write as simply as possible.

_That is great! I am in class, but keep trying, ok?_

After this, he got no more messages and hoped that his reply hadn’t been taken wrong, or lost in translation. Again, years flew by with next to nothing new, injury or message, from his Russian soulmate. The occasional doodle all to support the fact that he even still existed.

He was in the gym cleaning up after practice with Kuroo when he suddenly felt like a brick had slammed into the side of his face.

“Whoa! You alright? Yakkun!” Kuroo came flying to his side and wrapped an arm around his shoulder, helping him up since the phantom blow has sent him staggering.

“Damn, my soulmate must have gotten a left hook or something...”

He moaned, massaging the blooming bruise on his cheek.

“Sheesh...oh, hey! They’re writing!” Kuroo pointed down.

Yaku hurried to lift his forearm up to find a messy spew of apologies bursting across his forearm.

The first thing he considered was how much better his Japanese had gotten over two years, give or take, it wasn’t nearly as broken, and while it was still a bit shaky, it was easily conversational.

_He must really be busting it to learn…_

A consideration he let hang in the back of his mind.

Kuroo gave his usual snarky grin. “You know, I think they just might be sorry.”

“Shut up, Kuroo.” Yaku grumbled as he sat on the bench and pulled a sharpie from his bag.

_What happened?_

He demanded in his words. _  
_

_I’m sorry! I tripped at school and hit my chin on a desk when I fell I’m growing a lot and everyone says that’s why I’m getting so clumsy! I’m so sorry!_

Yaku shot Kuroo a glare because the bed-headed boy was trying to read over his shoulder.

“Go away, Kuroo.” He snapped as he wrote back.

_It’s ok! Calm down, I’m fine. You’ve never really done anything that hurt before, really, it’s more of me getting all the bruises._

“Yaku, what are you doing to your poor soulmate? They seem like such a nice one too.” Kuroo quipped as he leaned on Mori’s shoulder.

“Kuroo, go the hell away.” The libero snapped as he saw a reply coming back.

_I was always scared of hurting you because I don’t want you to hate me if we ever meet. How do you get hurt so much?_

“Aw...that’s so insecure and adorable.” Kuroo cooed.

“Kuroo, do I need to define ‘go away’ to you?” Yaku growled.

“Nah, I just wanna see the drama.” Kuroo drawled.  
“Go watch some stupid rom-com, then.”

_I wouldn’t hate you for getting hurt sometimes. I play volleyball, and I’m the libero, the person who receives balls, so I dive onto the wood a lot. I get a lot of bruises, so you shouldn’t be worried about tripping every now and again. You don’t have to be worried about me so much._

“You’re such a mom.”

“Shut up.”

“ _Touch-y_ ”

Rolling his eyes, Morisuke bid his partner a good day, night, afternoon, morning whatever it was where they were, and headed home.

The next year, things got dreadfully dull. It started out with a weekend spent playing volleyball with the team, kicking Kuroo repeatedly, and then having to apologize when Kuroo's phone started blowing up because his soulmate, whom he’d already met, who lived in Miyagi was in the middle of his own practice and couldn’t move due to sudden pain in his shins.

“Sorry, sorry, Kei! I’ll stop being annoying! I get it, ok? Wait, don’t hang...up.”

Kuroo trailed off as he stared at his phone, and Yamamoto burst out laughing.

“Did you get booted to the couch?” He teased.

“We don’t even live together, get off my back.” Kuroo snapped in reply.

Things continued like this for weeks.

For _months._

Yaku wrote to his soulmate often enough, but the silence held.

_Why?_

He’d wondered this more than once.

_Why do they have to do this? Only send me messages when they’re either apologizing or worried?_

Sighing, Yaku wondered just what this anxious soulmate of his looked like in person. The growing part worried him, he sincerely hoped that they weren’t that much taller than him because hoping they were the same height, or that Morisuke was taller was just pointless.

“So, oh great Captain, do you think we have a good line up this year for first years?” Yaku asked sarcastically as he walked with Kuroo towards the gym.

“I think so, I mean, some crazy tall half Russian kid with an accent showed up to the recruiting booth saying he wanted to play. I think he wanted to talk to everyone, but didn’t because he was embarrassed about his accent. He didn’t grow up speaking Japanese, so when I was talking to him, he mixed up his words sometimes. It’s not horrible, though, and for learning later, he’s fluent.”

Yaku frowned. “If anyone teases him, I’ll kick them.”

“Protective, aren’t we, Mama Kitty?” Kuroo asked pointedly as he unlocked the gym doors and pushed his way inside.

Sighing heavily and not dignifying that with a response, Yaku walked inside and wandered his way towards the storage room to start setting up for the first official practice of his final year.

Once the rest of the team had arrived, he found that several first years were amongst them, and looked among them for the ‘crazy tall half Russian’ that Kuroo had talked about earlier.

“Where’s that boy you were telling me about?”

Kuroo shrugged as he pushed another cart of balls out onto the court.

“Not sure, hope he didn’t get cold feet. He seems like a nice kid, but he told me he only moved here a few months ago from where he’d grown up in Russia. Can’t blame him for a bit of culture shock.”

Yaku nodded, for he had to agree.

A few minutes later, though, while everyone was distracted with becoming reacquainted, and some just acquainted period, Morisuke spotted a pair of emerald green eyes peeking around the corner of the gym doors.

When they were spotted, though, they vanished back behind the wall.

Excusing himself from a conversation he hadn’t even really been paying any attention too, he walked over to the door and leaned out.

There was one thing Kuroo was right about, and that was that this kid was _tall._

He had close to thirty centimeters on Yaku, and he did not appreciate it in the slightest. He gave a small yelp when he saw Morisuke poking his head out the door and jumped back a bit. He was still in his school uniform, and he instantly gave a sloppy apology.

“I..! Sorry, I didn’t mean to be spying!” His voice held a heavy Russian lilt, but it was perfectly understandable.

Yaku shook his head quickly as he walked outside. “It’s ok, don’t freak out! Why are you out here instead of inside? Kuroo told me you were looking to join the team.”

The boy nodded softly and scratched the back of his head.

“I just moved here, and I am not very good at Japanese...so I do not want to look stupid with everyone around.”

Morisuke waved his hand. “Nonsense! No one would care if you have an accent, and your speaking is perfectly fine! Oh, and by the way, I’m Yaku Morisuke, a third-year on the team.”

“O-Oh...I’m Le..wait no... Haiba Lev, I’m a first-year.”

“Nice to meet you! Where did you move from?” Morisuke wanted to try and help him open up a bit more instead of just dragging him inside.

“St. Petersburg...it’s a long way from here.” He admitted.

Yaku nodded, smiling.

_So what if Kuroo says I can be the devil’s spawn? I can be kind too! Besides, this guy needs a serious leg up before I throw him in with Kuroo and Yamamoto._

“Sounds like it. What is it like out there?”

Lev talked about his home a bit more, and he got a little less nervous and a little bit more excitable. He started gesturing with his hands and smiling a lot brighter. 

Yaku urged him along by asking a few questions here and there, which Lev were happy to answer. One question he asked, though, he did not realize how much weight it carried until it was answered.

“Why made you want to take up volleyball?” He asked.

Lev gave a soft sigh. “My soulmate is a volleyball player. I know they live in Japan, but I don’t know where...they write me a lot, but I don’t know how to answer. Even when I learned Japanese and could understand them. I’m really scared they’ll not like me if I mess something up with what I am trying to say.”

Yaku’s eyes widened. “Wait...your soulmate is a volleyball player? A libero?”

“Yes. How did you know?” Lev looked him up and down before Morisuke suddenly pinched his arm.

Lev jumped.

“Ow! What was...that?”

Yaku crossed his arms pointedly. “You have any idea how worried I was? I thought you were dead when I was growing up!”

Lev looked for all the world like he’d just been blindsided.

“It’s...you?”

“Apparently,” Yaku replied curtly.

Lev threw his arms up. “I’m sorry I ignored you! I was just scared, I didn’t know how to answer! Not to mention how you said you thought I was dead.”

Yaku’s eye twitched. “I said I thought you were dead because you didn’t answer me!”

Lev looked down at Morisuke for a moment. “Wow, you’re smaller than I imagined.”

Yaku kicked him in the shin, and both of them went down since Yaku felt the pain of it.

“Why did you do that!? You knew it would hurt you too!” Lev wailed, tears in the corners of his eyes.

“Worth it. Besides, I have a high pain tolerance. I fling myself around on a hard wooden floor for fun, after all. Now come on.”

Yaku seized Lev by the hand and dragged him towards the gym doors.

“W-Wait! I do not think...”

“Too bad.” Yaku hauled him through the open gym doors.

“Found one!” He shouted.

“Hey, Yakkun caught us a big guy!” Kuroo cheered, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

Lev seemed like he was going to have a small panic attack, but with Morisuke standing right next to him, he avoided it.

Later on, when Lev said to Kuroo that he’d gotten dragged in because Morisuke was his soul mate, the libero had kicked him in the backs of the knees again.

Lev had fallen over, and Morisuke hadn’t even flinched. Sure, it had hurt, but it was worth it.

He supposed the years of silence were worth it as well, even if it had taken a while to get this bumbling idiot by his side.

**Author's Note:**

> That's all! I had a lot of fun polishing this one up, I wrote it like two years ago and figured it deserved to finally see the light of day! Please drop a comment if you enjoyed it or have any suggestions for other ships! The ones on my list right now are...  
> KiyoYachi  
> TsukkiKuroo  
> DaiSuga  
> So if you'd like, vote for one! Or just tell me another one you'd like to see, I'm up for it! Ok, thanks so much for reading!


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